Elephants who break stuff, as evidenced below. These are just two examples of events that take place in the world to make you feel more engaged, even if all you are doing is walking from point A to point B.Īlso… elephants. You can engage in “karma events” this time around which are random events all over the map which allow you to do everything from saving people from animal attacks to destroying cargo vehicles of the enemy. There are more animals (some of which are annoying, screw you, birds and Demon fish!) and more people. On top of looking better, the world feels even more alive this time. Even with saying that, I can’t wait until we get games that are made for this gen only (and not both PS3/4) because that’s when we are going to start to see the visuals in games take off. One of the first major differences you will notice is that the the game obviously looks a ton better on the current gen.
I’m sure that sounds like a another knock against the game, and it might be for those who are bored of Far Cry, but for me it’s the life that’s in the world and the activities I can take place in which keep me rather entertained. This is better and ultimately, more interesting than FC3, but the story remains inconsequential to this game. You oblige instead of dropping your mother’s ashes off and getting the hell away, because you have a big heart? Something like that.
The people who save Ajay are the “Golden Path” and of course, they want you to help fight the good fight against Min. He’s almost as engaging as Vaas, which is saying something, but much like the last game, we don’t get very much of him. Min is the county’s evil ruler and this game’s version of Vaas. Ajay is rescued from Pagan Min at the beginning of the game after his bus is hijacked by Min’s soldiers. The story this game sets out to tell is the complete antithesis of the last game, but it’s almost like Ubisoft doubled down so hard on being better than FC3 that they still made the so story over-the-top that it’s not very engaging. The only thing that really feels different are the story missions that take place on the mountainside, as those are snow covered and offer low visibility. The ocean has been replaced by lakes and rivers with darker water. Just like Far Cry 3 the land is hilly with lots of trees, grass, dirt roads and hidden caverns. The map is so similar to Far Cry 3’s in appearance and scope that it barely feels like I’m paying a new game. Think Peru and its mountains and you have a good idea of the landscape. The area you are placed in is Kyrat, which is a fictional Himalayan area. You’re cast as Ajay (which is sometimes annunciated as AH-jay or just AJ), a national coming back to your parent’s country to disperse of your mother’s ashes. Not a sky-diving rich kid who has lots of daddy’s money to play with. The key difference here is the attempt at making a character you care about. It was really solid from a gameplay standpoint. The controls worked as well as you’d hope any FPS game to. Cars would drive by, a tiger would try to murder you and you could swim in the bright blue ocean.
Each game in both series is just more of the same and for some that works, others it does not.The gameplay, though! Oh how they nailed that! You were put into a living, breathing world with tons of activities and life happening all around you. For myself, I’ve not yet hit series fatigue with Far Cry like I have, say, Borderlands. That might sound negative, but it is not. That is because, quite simply, this game is nearly an expansion pack to the previous game with a few upgrades on the previous iteration’s formula. I’m spending a lot of time talking about Far Cry 3 for a Far Cry 4 review. When you get to him, after he was being shot at and had explosions going off all around him, his first words to you are “Whoa, dude! Nice tat!” Exhibit A on why these were some of the worst protagonists, ever. There is a portion of the game where you are trying to save a friend by sniping from a distance as he runs for safety. Your goal, within the context of the story, was to save your friends. The main character who you played as was a giant, flaming douchebag. He was roughly 10% of the story and died way too early. Between his look, the voice acting and the ability to sync his face to his words (so few games do this well that it’s obvious when it happens) he hit on all cylinders. On one hand, you had Vaas, who might be one of the best bad guys to ever grace a video game. That game had so many flaws in its story and characters that, if the gameplay wasn’t as fun as it was, would have rendered the game unplayable for me. Far Cry 3 was a really interesting experience for me.